It’s one of the most beautiful weekends so far this summer in Milwaukee and it’s not only a holiday weekend, it’s the 100th birthday bash for Harley Davidson motorcycles, built right here in Milwaukee!!!Bikers, literally, from all over the US and the world are here to celebrate this weekend. There must be close to 350,000 bikers, it’s a sight to behold!! And the cool part is that everyone is super friendly, well behaved, and so far only 12 accidents (thank goodness!). Every nook and cranny of Milwaukee’s downtown streets, parks, alleys, sidewalks and the Lake Michigan lake front is jammed-packed with row after row of glistening Harley muscle. The bikes are absolutlely beautiful and the biker dudes aren’t so bad lookin’ either Earlier today, I tried to get downtown to my school’s library to study, HA!, what was I thinking?!, streets were blocked off for the parade of approximately 10,000 bikers that started from the far western burbs to the lakefront, the sidewalks filled with throngs of people waving orange and black H-D signs and cheering wildly as the roaring bikes and riders went by, the parade lasted about 3 hours! I decided then and there what I’d be doing today, and it’s not going to the library!Wish you all were here, I’m going down to the lakefront, hoist a few cold wet ones and celebrate Harley’s 100th! Vita

Vita do I wish I were there!! I just got my bike this past Thursday. I was hoping to get it earlier but things didn't work out. Had I gotten it earlier I would have been there!!Oh well, maybe I'll live to be 135 so I can go to the next one!! LOL

I have wanted a motorcycle for soooooo long & so badly I could taste it. However, in recent years, I have refrained from pushing it in deference to Wendy - when she was young, her grandfather was killed on a scooter and that has profoundly colored her perspective on motorcycles. Now, after one month on neurosurgery, I am not so sure that I can even accept the consequences of motorcycle ownership. I saw way too many cases of paraplegia, quadraplegia & neurologic devastation due to motorcycling. The most alarming part was the the majority of them were incidences of the cyclist doing something stupid. Usually, it was the inattentive driver of the car that hit them that was at fault. However, the absence of culpability did nothing to diminish the damage…they remained just as handicapped.My intent was not to pooh-pooh on your parade Geoff. I still lust over HDs! As with anything, there is a light & dark side to the reality & I, just having survived neurosurgery, felt compelled to balance the thread by injecting dark side of the coin.

I have wanted a motorcycle for soooooo long & so badly I could taste it. However, in recent years, I have refrained from pushing it in deference to Wendy - when she was young, her grandfather was killed on a scooter and that has profoundly colored her perspective on motorcycles. Now, after one month on neurosurgery, I am not so sure that I can even accept the consequences of motorcycle ownership. I saw way too many cases of paraplegia, quadraplegia & neurologic devastation due to motorcycling. The most alarming part was the the majority of them were incidences of the cyclist doing something stupid. Usually, it was the inattentive driver of the car that hit them that was at fault. However, the absence of culpability did nothing to diminish the damage...they remained just as handicapped.My intent was not to pooh-pooh on your parade Geoff. I still lust over HDs! As with anything, there is a light & dark side to the reality & I, just having survived neurosurgery, felt compelled to balance the thread by injecting dark side of the coin.

I’ll chime in with the party poopers.My mother was nearly killed when I was 11 due to a motorcycle accident. She spent a couple of months in the Kansas City Research Hospital ICU and still has physical deficits for life.I also spent several weeks on our trauma team at our Level 1 Trauma Center in Tampa last year and on my last call night there was a great big bike night in Ybor City. The first trauma page came in at 6pm and they came one right after another til about 9am. The results included 3 or 4 quadriplegias, a couple of paraplegias, multiple broken limbs, crushed faces, a couple of bolts applied, many, many stitches, and devastated families. None of them died that night but there wasn’t much hope for a couple of them.For those who insist on participating, please don’t mix any etoh or other “stuff” and be ever, ever vigilant and defensive in your driving.Love ya but you scare me, Kim

Once, there was this airplane, and it crashed? And all these people died? So, now I'll never ride on an airplane again? (Try saying it like that girl from American Pie for best effect).Sorry, I just had to do that. For some reason, I've been hearing 'band camp?' quotes everywhere and I felt compelled to add one here.Party pooping aside, I'm sure it must have been a great parade. I've loved Harley's for a long time. I bought a 883 Sportster in 1988 and rode it all over Central Texas and New England before selling it about 6 years ago. Great motorcycle. I miss it.Take care,Jeff